Immunology conference today in Chicago

There will be 4 hours scientific presentation titled 'Insights into the Immunology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome' today in Chicago, sponsored by NIH (NIAID) and featuring some of the proeminent researchers in the field. Here is further info upon finding it on the schedule:

Myalgic encephalomyelitis /chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating and complex disorder that severely impacts the life of ~2 million Americans. There is no documented cause of ME/CFS, it is difficult to diagnose, and there are no specific biomarkers nor diagnostic testing available currently. Multiple recent ME/CFS expert panels have recommended multidisciplinary, novel approaches to gain a better understanding of ME/CFS. This symposium will bring together immunologists working in the ME/CFS field to review progress of immunological studies and foster collaborations on biomarker discovery, immune mechanisms and potential therapeutic development.

Chair:
Joseph Breen, PhD, National Institutes of Health

Program:

12:45p.m. Welcome and ObjectivesJoseph Breen, PhD, National Institutes of Health and Vicky Whittemore, PhD, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

12:50 p.m. The Public Health Problem of ME/CFSElizabeth Unger, MD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This half‐day symposium will provide a forum for experts in the immunology of ME/CFS to present the current state of the science to key clinical immunology stakeholders. These interactions should stimulate new approaches to decipher the mechanistic and immunological underpinnings of ME/CFS. Such collaborative efforts will open new research avenues and potential clinical solutions to combat ME/CFS.

Footnote: I do not believe there is webcasting for this, it would be nice if it was.

I submitted a request to the Trans-NIH ME/CFS Working Group they make a video, transcript and/or slides available of all the presentations, including Mark Davis', if possible.

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Reply received today from NINDS:

Thank you for your inquiry about the "Insights into the Immunology of CFS" session of the recent FOCiS Conference. The FOCIS session was not videocast, and the organizers are not distributing a transcript or slides. However, information from the session will be summarized at the next Trans-NIH ME/CFS Working Group telebriefing on July 10. Additional information about the telebriefing will be distributed to the Trans-NIH ME/CFS Information list when it is closer to the event date.

Sincerely,
Marian Emr
Director, Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
on behalf of the Trans-NIH ME/CFS Working Group

Public Health Relevance
This is, to our knowledge, the first longitudinal study of ME/CFS to incorporate both mild and severe cases, age, sex, and residence-matched Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and healthy controls, and to incorporate virological, immunological and gene expression data into the same study. There is a clear need for research in these areas, and the inclusion of severe cases using home visits will allow for research on a subset of patients often neglected in ME/CFS studies. Because approximately 1-4 million Americans have ME/CFS, this study has the potential to impact the lives of a large patient population in the US as well as advance the state of the field in the US, UK, and globally through the potential identification of evidence related to disease etiology and pathophysiology as well as disease subtypes and biomarkers, revealing potential routes for treatment.

Public Health Relevance
This is, to our knowledge, the first longitudinal study of ME/CFS to incorporate both mild and severe cases, age, sex, and residence-matched Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and healthy controls, and to incorporate virological, immunological and gene expression data into the same study. There is a clear need for research in these areas, and the inclusion of severe cases using home visits will allow for research on a subset of patients often neglected in ME/CFS studies. Because approximately 1-4 million Americans have ME/CFS, this study has the potential to impact the lives of a large patient population in the US as well as advance the state of the field in the US, UK, and globally through the potential identification of evidence related to disease etiology and pathophysiology as well as disease subtypes and biomarkers, revealing potential routes for treatment.

Professor Riley was presenting results from an immunological study study that was carried out using blood samples from the ME Biobank

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@charles shepherd, thank you for your excellent work helping patients and for posting links re: this "most" important study.The schedule indicates it began in 2013 and ended in 2016,13 months ago, if I'm reading correctly.

Do you happen to know if Prof. Riley presented "actual" study results at this Conference which covers the latest breakthroughs in immune-mediated diseases?

Reason for asking I don't see a published paper about the study from Dr. Nacul, et al in PubMed yet. Might they be publishing soon do you know?

Yes would like to know what Mark Davis is saying about T cells, I don't believe we have heard much on that before.

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NIH has just posted the transcript of the July 10th briefing; Dr. Breen's summary of Dr. Mark Davis' ME/CFS findings:

And then we heard some of the work that’s supported by Mark Davis at Stanford. And Mark has really pioneered the way to go from how the immune system senses either an external or internal antigen and then actually how that response is generated.

And it’s very groundbreaking work in that he can go from not knowing what the body is responding to, to actually doing detective work and tracking back to find where the original response was. For example, in a large cohort of chronic fatigue patients he has now found a number of new antigens that correlate with disease. And he hasn’t published this yet, and he’s not ready to tell us because he needs to be 100 percent certain of what these antigens are, but I think the approach itself is really groundbreaking. It was published about a month ago for TB. [my bold]